An open collection of baseball's little-known records and curiosities.

"He would have been among the league leaders in batting average for a majority of the season had he had enough plate appearances." -- 2008 St. Louis Cardinals Media Guide about non-roster invitee Mark Johnson

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

(Don't) Swing, Batter!

It's always frustrating for fans to watch their team's pitchers miss the strike zone consistently. In yesterday's Chicago-Pittsburgh game, Pirates Rule 5 pick Evan Meek, forced into a tie game in the twelfth, threw thirty-six pitches and only eleven of them were strikes. Granted, he had two intentional walks mixed in there, but that's still a hard thing to watch. A Rule 5 back-of-the-bullpen pitcher might have an excuse, although it might not be a good one.

Starting pitchers, on the other hand, who throw more balls than strikes in an outing are really annoying. The Baseball-Reference.com Play Index lists 43,722 starts from 1999-2007 (the years I've found with reliable pitch data) and only 705 of them (1.6%) featured at least as many balls as strikes thrown. The wild starters' teams were a combined 191-514 (.271) in those games and the pitchers themselves went 40-386 (.094).

I've put together some lists of the lowest percentage of strikes thrown in a start and broken it into multiple categories so the list isn't cluttered by guys who left shortly after the game started due to injury or managerial ire.

Lowest Percentage of Strikes Thrown in a Start, 1-49 pitches1999-2007

Rank

Name

Date

Team

Opponent

Pitches

Strikes

Strike %

1

Aaron Myette

9/3/2002

TEX

BAL

4

0

0.0

2

Justin Wayne

5/3/2003

FLA

HOU

23

4

17.4

3

Ryan Dempster

10/5/2001

FLA

ATL

45

14

31.1

4

Kyle Davies

7/16/2007

ATL

CIN

22

7

31.8

5

Jason Standridge

7/13/2003

TBD

SEA

31

10

32.3

6

Kevin Correia

9/12/2005

SFG

SDP

27

9

33.3

7

Mickey Callaway

6/18/1999

TBD

MIN

12

4

33.3

8

Chad Gaudin

6/22/2004

TBD

TOR

29

10

34.5

9

Brian Tollberg

6/10/2003

SDP

CLE

26

9

34.6

10

Michael Tejera

7/1/2004

FLA

ATL

23

8

34.8

Ramon Martinez

9/28/2000

BOS

CHW

23

8

34.8

Lowest Percentage of Strikes Thrown in a Start, 50-99 pitches1999-2007

Rank

Name

Date

Team

Opponent

Pitches

Strikes

Strike %

1

Alan Levine

9/27/2000

ANA

OAK

51

18

35.3

2

Daniel Cabrera

4/7/2006

BAL

BOS

60

22

36.7

3

Ryan Dempster

4/30/2003

CIN

COL

50

19

38.0

4

Shawn Chacon

8/16/2003

COL

NYM

52

20

38.5

5

Jim Brower

7/5/2000

CLE

TOR

52

20

38.5

6

Rocky Coppinger

4/25/1999

BAL

OAK

57

22

38.6

7

Jonathan Johnson

6/13/2003

HOU

BOS

76

30

39.5

8

Mario Ramos

6/29/2003

TEX

HOU

75

30

40.0

9

Wes Obermueller

5/31/2005

MIL

SDP

55

22

40.0

10

Darryl Kile

4/23/1999

COL

SFG

54

22

40.7

Lowest Percentage of Strikes Thrown in a Start, 100+ pitches1999-2007

Rank

Name

Date

Team

Opponent

Pitches

Strikes

Strike %

1

Ervin Santana

7/20/2006

LAA

KCR

103

46

44.7

2

Jason Jennings

9/8/2002

COL

SDP

108

49

45.4

3

Tom Glavine

8/21/2004

NYM

SFG

110

50

45.5

4

Tom Glavine

9/18/2001

ATL

PHI

105

48

45.7

5

Shawn Chacon

7/24/2002

COL

ARI

118

54

45.8

6

Al Leiter

5/1/2004

NYM

SDP

113

52

46.0

7

Robert Person

7/17/2002

PHI

CHC

115

53

46.1

8

Chris Capuano

4/18/2005

MIL

LAD

104

48

46.2

9

Russ Ortiz

9/8/2003

ATL

PHI

110

51

46.4

10

Darren Dreifort

4/20/1999

LAD

ATL

103

48

46.6

It's interesting that Tom Glavine shows up on the last list twice. On the final list, Ortiz and Dreifort got wins for their trouble.

There are quite a few pitchers who show up more than once on the list of starts with at least as many balls thrown as strikes. Below you'll find the pitchers with six or more such games.

Some of those guys are still active, so watch for them to pad their "wild start" numbers. Also note that since this is only since the 1999 season, guys like Tom Glavine probably have more starts that qualify from before then.

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